News in a networked world
Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, will discuss his project’s latest findings about how people use the internet, smartphones, and social media tools to get news, share news, and create news. He will describe how the very definition of news is expanding in the age of “me media.” He will discuss the project’s new research about how people use different platforms to get news about different topics: that is, they use different media channels to learn about the weather and learn about local government. He will also describe how social networks have become essential transmitters of news and evaluators of the meaning of news in people’s civic lives.